Forums | MacLife

ok, so i was bored and i ran 12 different time demos, with varying settings, trying to optimize my setup.

first, the relevant system details:
733 MHz G4 processor, 1280 MB RAM, 128 MB NVIDIA GeForce 4 Titanium 4600 graphics card

here are the overviews of the different settings i used, with the average fps listed. unless otherwise specified, all settings are on the lowest possible value.

1. 640x480, no shaders, minimum settings average 22.6 fps
2. 800x600, vertex shaders, all others minimum 25.34 fps
3.800x600, vertex shaders, extreme lens flare 23.53 fps
4.1280x1024, no shaders 20.07 fps
5.1280x1024, vertex shaders 25.23 fps
6.1280x1024, vertex shaders, model detail high, particles low 23.97 fps
7.1280x1024, vertex shaders, model detail medium, particles low, lens flare high 22.06 fps
8.1280x1024, vertex shaders, model detail medium, particles low, lens flare medium 24.79 fps
9.1280x1024, vertex shaders, model detail medium, particles low, lens flare medium, texture quality high 24.46 fps
10.1280x1024, vertex shaders, model detail medium, particles low, lens flare medium, texture quality high, decals on, 23.82 fps
11.1280x1024, vertex shaders, model detail medium, particles high, lens flare medium, texture quality medium, decals off 22.29
12.1280x1024, vertex shaders, model detail medium, particles low, lens flare medium, texture quality medium, decals on 23.93 fps

my final setup will be 1280x1024, vertex shaders, minimum settings for online play, and 1280x1024, vertex shaders, model detail medium, particles low, lens flare medium, texture quality high for single play.

a couple interesting things to note:
vertex shaders rendering pipeline not only looks better, but is faster than no shaders (weird)
between 10 and 12, changing the texture detail from high to medium brought about an average fps gain of only 0.11 fps
decals add around 1 fps when turned off
changing the model detail from low to high only takes off 1.26 fps


and yeah, i know, i have no life and too much time on my hands

Hardly... vertex refers to the vertexes, vertices, of the triangles that make up the polys in the 3D world. Mileage is varying between cards in Mac Halo, but yours is doing a pretty good job speeding up geometry processing in the FF pipeline, which was why pains were taken to allow the option for cards with vertex shaders.

In the otherwise Fixed Function pipeline, you're getting some useful work out of your card's programmable shaders- the vertex kind, anyway.

huh. i see your point.

call me crazy, but normally when i change a setting and the detail level goes way up, as it does from no shaders to vertex shaders, it slows the game down, not speeds it up.  not complaining, though... better graphics AND faster! i'm very impressed now with how well halo runs on my system, and it still looks very good (the one exception being the lack of a flare on the overcharged plasma pistol... why does that only show up on "extreme" lens flares?)

...
...i'm very impressed now with how well halo runs on my system, and it still looks very good (the one exception being the lack of a flare on the overcharged plasma pistol... why does that only show up on "extreme" lens flares?)

Because a pistol overcharge is "extreme?" 

indeed it is! it's just very odd to me that i can tell people are overcharged by the green halo they cast in a sphere around them, but i would give that up for the simple flare effect on the screen. as was asked in a different forum, why couldn't they have just made it a sprite like the other guns? (if they still use sprites...)

Sprites in a shader game? Bite your to-.. fingers.

ah, my subtle sarcasm was missed. oh well... although i honestly don't know what sprites were replaced with, i do know that if halo used sprites it'd look like the original marathon... rather *flat*

Sprites in a shader game? Bite your to-.. fingers.

ah, my subtle sarcasm was missed. oh well... although i honestly don't know what sprites were replaced with, i do know that if halo used sprites it'd look like the original marathon... rather *flat*

To gain performance, the next patch will disable all texture filtering as well as FSAA in favor of point-sampling.

It was good enough for Marathon. Retro is in...

yeah, and marathon's graphics were, to say the least, creepy as hell when they first came out. plus, they had a great storyline and it was pretty hard on the toughest difficulty, esp. in the first couple of levels where you have NO ammo. learn to run 'n punch!

No, I also see lens flares through walls and floors sometimes too. It also happens with the sun's lens flare effect. It's just some graphical glitch from the game engine. Oh, and I'm using OS X 10.3.2.

I sometimes see Z-buffering issues like that, tho less severe. Seems like a driver issue, but not necessarily... wonder if everything's appropriately 24/32 bit deep.